ROBERT SILKE
Architect Robert Silke spent his December Builders’ Holiday in Honolulu, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Yes, it took a 29-hour flight and a 12-hour time difference to get this Capetonian onto a beach…
HONOLULU IN DECEMBER IS A PARADISE,
WITH GOD’S THERMOSTAT SET AT A CONSTANT 24°C.
A LONG WAY TO GO FOR A BEACH VACATION I am not a “beach person”. Photogenic Cape Town may well resemble paradise, but the south-easter, the cold Atlantic, the thin ozone and the dodgy public lavatories keep this Jew pale and melanoma-free. United Airlines now flies direct from Cape Town to Newark, but it’s still 29 hours each way – including layovers – for the unlikely swap of summer in Cape Town with winter in its antipode, Hawaii. But Honolulu in December is a paradise, with God’s thermostat set at a constant 24°C, no bugs and no great whites. What’s more, it’s a fully fledged American commercial city, where everything functions and gleams. Like Miami, Honolulu is a tropical resort for city slickers.
TROPICAL ARCHITECTURE But that’s where the Miami comparisons end. Major development started after World War II, and only moved into full gear after Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. So there’s scant Art Deco; instead, you’ll find a pleasingly homogeneous and rather grand array of exuberant, prosperous, tropical, latemodernist high-rises (think revolving restaurants and
HawaiiFive-O). There’s also some brave Brutalism, not conventionally pretty and often popularly derided; you should rather try to think of it as late Art Deco or naked Art Deco (which it is) – and imagine it plastered and with a coat of pink paint, so as to acquire the taste for it.
INTEGRATED CITY As you might expect from a paradise, there are no walls or fences to be seen. All beaches are public. When you lounge at the Four Seasons’ beach, you get to use all of the Four Seasons’ facilities. At the Aulani Disney resort’s beach, Disney manages the public changing rooms. Around Waikiki Beach (the Camps Bay and Clifton of Honolulu), the sidewalks are lined with Gucci and Prada stores, and finished in glistening sandstone paving – which seamlessly gives way to the Hilton’s guest pool area, creating a wall-free public thoroughfare to the beach.
WHERE TO STAY Hawaii (and Oahu in particular) is not cheap by any standard, and Airbnb listings are few and far between. We stayed at two Hiltons and a Holiday Inn Express – which once again vindicated my hard-learnt dictum that a brand-new two-star property always beats a 40-year-old five-star property. Hands down.
EATING OUT We avoided the tourist traps around Waikiki, and pursued our penchant for drive-ins, dives and hole-inthe-wall diners. The highlights included Oreo milkshakes made with cream crackers and cream cheese, and pulledpork sandwiches with guava barbecue relish – both from Kono’s Northshore. Leonard’s Bakery (for Portuguese-style malasada doughnuts) and Helena’s Hawaiian Food (for authentic home cooking) both require queuing outside and/or eating these amazing things on a parking-lot bench. Beach-side food trucks (such as Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck on North Shore) offer some of the best, most affordable cuisine on the island. Polynesian Hawaii has a primarily porcine and fish-based diet, and the Japanese influence is strong. My partner Gideon got into musubi – a spam sushi – while I avoided raw fish bowls, mindful of the Homer Simpson adage that “Poke is just okay…”